Family involvement

AMLE says:

The school actively involves families in the education of their children.
Schools and families must work together to provide the best possible learning for every young adolescent. Schools take the initiative in involving and educating families.

It means:

Middle schools (and all schools, really) need to proactively involve parents in the education of students.  There can be meetings in community centers, local housing projects (doesn't this just scream "urban, at-risk" youth?), interpreters, family learning centers, translations of materials, or meetings with school officials and other parents.  Technology, too, can help facilitate contact: newsletters, report cards, parent-teacher conferences, and homework hotlines.  Research shows that involvement of community members and family is linked to higher student achievement, improved student behavior, and greater support for schools.  Of course, the partnership must be symbiotic, with mutually understood roles and expectations.  Schools should expect families to use the opportunities provided to support student learning, and families should spend time to invest in their child's education.  And then, the disclaimer: be sensitive of local and cultural considerations (duh).

Example:

Below is a clip from a newsletter from one of the middle schools in my hometown district, West Genesee. 

This newsletter is pretty similar to what I received back in the day from good ol' Camillus Middle School.  The beginning of the school year featured a disclaimer, which basically described expectations of students and their families, as well as what to look forward to during the school year.  On the right, you can see the homework hotline phone numbers, which were a saving grace.  I never wrote my homework in my planner, and lost many points in homeroom for this.  Every night, I'd call the homework hotline to check my homework.  Not featured in the school newsletter is all the stuff about parent-teacher conferences, which were jam-packed.  You literally had to show up 30 minutes early to get a spot in the parking lot.  Otherwise, you had to walk from the soccer field, which wrapped around the back of the school.  

Why it works:

The newsletter shows a proactive approach to involving parents and families into the education of students.  It sets roles and expectations, such that they are mutual.  The hotline also implies that there is no excuse for not doing or not knowing homework, and is an effective use of technology in a middle-of-the-road (read: not rich, not poor, brilliant superintendent who knew how to balance a checkbook) public school.  The school expected families to spend time and effort working with students, but offered a lot of resources and opportunities: student concerts, planners, parent-teacher conferences, enrichment programs and after-school interaction time, and special meetings as need be.

My classroom/school:

As aforementioned, I need to proactively reach out to parents, so that they know what their students are doing in school.  They are all verbal, but on a very developing basis.  I can only imagine that if I was a parent of a student with emergent speech and language skills that I would want near daily, if not daily, contact about my child!  Anyway, I know my school on the whole has workshops and support group-type meetings for parents.  It's hard to do meetings in community centers or other locales, since it is District 75 and runs across the city, rather than a neighborhood.  My site makes use of those who can speak Spanish to help parents (in fact, the transition coordinator is a native Spanish speaker...not to mention the various others who speak Spanish, Arabic, etc.), so there is no need, to my knowledge, for an interpreter.  Materials go out regularly in English and Spanish, and a quarterly newsletter is produced.  On my end, I might consider using technology to facilitate parent-teacher conferences, especially since many of my students' parents work full time and have a student with very profound needs (e.g. they can't be left alone).  Thus, attendance rates at conferences are low -- although, to be frank, I talk to them so much that they pretty much know what's going on anyway.  I will continue to think of how to better use technology to liaise with parents and to develop better partnerships with them.